View synonyms for Chinook

Chinook

[ shi-nook, -nook, chi- ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

, plural Chi·nooks, (especially collectively) Chi·nook.

a member of a formerly numerous North American Indian people originally inhabiting the northern shore of the mouth of the Columbia River and the adjacent territory.
either of the two languages of the Chinook Indians. Compare Lower Chinook, Upper Chinook.
(lowercase) a warm, dry wind that blows at intervals down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
(lowercase) chinook salmon.
a U.S. Army cargo helicopter in service since 1962 and capable of ferrying 12 tons of supplies and troops.

Chinook

/ -ˈnʊk; tʃɪˈnuːk /

-nook-nooks a Native American people of the Pacific coast near the Columbia River
the language of this people, probably forming a separate branch of the Penutian phylum

chinook

/ -ˈnʊk; tʃɪˈnuːk /

Also calledsnow eater a warm dry southwesterly wind blowing down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains
Also calledwet chinook a warm moist wind blowing onto the Washington and Oregon coasts from the sea

chinook

/ shĭ-nk′,chĭ- /

A moist, warm wind blowing from the sea in coastal regions of the Pacific Northwest.
A warm, dry wind descending from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, causing a rapid rise in temperature. These winds often melt snow quite rapidly, at times at a rate of up to a foot per hour.
See also foehn

Origin of Chinook¹

C19: from Salish c`inuk

The Chinook vibrated with deeper and deeper groans until its twin engines managed to heave up our dead weight.

The note promised to send more pictures “like before,” and included a photograph of a Chinook helicopter unloading supplies.

Chinook For this crowd, a spelling bee is no matter to be joked about.

Next he says a double rotor Chinook landed inside the compound.

Need I add that tum-tum in the Chinook jargon signifies the soul!

Having made friends, he told me in a mixture of broken English and Chinook some of the old folk lore of his tribe.

But few of them speak the English language fluently; they mostly talk French and Chinook jargon.

The idea expressed in English by the sentence I came to give it to her is rendered in Chinook by i-n-i-a-l-u-d-am.

Thus began and ended our first lesson in the Chinook jargon, and our first experience with a clam bake.

Browse